


There is love in the brushstroke

by fineandwittie



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Art, Artists, First Kiss, Get Together, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, paint me like one of your French girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon and Gaby go undercover at an art exhibition. The art takes Napoleon's breath away, but not for the reasons you might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is love in the brushstroke

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Collector](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843679) by [tumtatumtum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumtatumtum/pseuds/tumtatumtum). 



For once, Napoleon and Gaby had been the paired couple, leaving Illya with a single room and to his own devices. It made perfect sense, Napoleon mused as he handed Gaby out of their town-car, because their mark was a gallery curator. Napoleon was, in fact, quite looking forward to the exhibition the man had organized, a display of obscure painters from across the world and all currently living.

Gaby looked resplendent in the gown that he’d picked for her. His tuxedo was new and perfectly tailored. They looked like the very definition of a power couple. The mark grinned toothily at them when they were ushered through the doors and shadowed their progress through the gallery.

Napoleon made a pointed comment about the quality of certain artists on display and the curator materialized at his elbow. “You have very educated tastes, m’lord. I know just the artist for you.” The toothy grin was stretching a bit thin. He led Napoleon and Gaby to a small room off the main gallery and gestured grandly to a series of paintings. “The artist, he is Swedish, I believe. He signs his work with only the letter I, or so I am told. I have never met him. No one has.”

Napoleon did not hear a word the man said. He was transfixed. There were three paintings. All displaying a naked body. In the first it was merely a shoulder, done with such skill that Napoleon could almost feel the silky texture of that skin under his fingertips. The second displayed the knobbed curve of a spine, curled and painful in dejection. It was the third that caught Napoleon’s eye and his breath. This was a full body, draped carelessly across a bed. The sheets twisted tightly across the man’s thighs, highlighting the curve of his buttocks, the length of his back, the play of muscle under skin. There was a small starburst of scar tissue high over the left hip, in the meaty flesh of the side. The man’s face was turned away. Napoleon didn’t need to see it.

“How much is this series going for?”

The curator blinked. Gaby stiffened. They were not here for art. Napoleon could not let these paintings go, to be hung on someone else’s wall. “Very costly, m’lord. This artist is very popular.

“I don’t care. How much?”

The man quotes a stupidly expensive price. Napoleon nodded. He was not in the mood to haggle or argue. He was quietly thankful that their cover-story excused this exorbitant price. “Fine. I’ll write you a check from one of my Swiss accounts, that way you’ll have your money with no…unwanted attention from anyone. Take them down. Immediately. And wrap them.”

The curator nodded jerkily and scurried away. Gaby rounded on him and hissed, “What the hell was that?”

Napoleon blinked and took a shuddering breath, still staring at the final painting. “I can’t let someone else take these. I can’t.”

Gaby narrowed her eyes and glanced back at the paintings. “Why not? Solo, what’s wrong?”

Napoleon exhaled and turned to her. “That’s me.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “A little narcissistic, don’t you think? I mean, I know you think everyone loves you, but this is just…”

He snorts, helpless and a little lost. He’d never quite understood the phrase ‘to be sent reeling’ before. He did now. “No, Gaby. That is me. Literally. I got that scar in Peru, on one of my first assignments. It’s a gunshot wound. An elderly woman named Maria in a village that was buried deep in the rainforest and too small to have a name patched me up. I nearly died. See the lines along the shoulder blade? Knife marks. That one’s more recent. And the circles at the small of his back? Those are cigarette burns. Those were from my handler and his cronies. That painting is of me.”

She gaped at him and turned with wide eyes to the painting again. “How? Who…?”

“It has to be Illya.” His voice is breathless, nearly inaudible. Her eyes snap back to him, startled. He says a silent thank you to whoever might be out there that Illya is not listening in. He had restricted the Russian to a tracker only, and then efficiently debugged his and Gaby’s clothing before they left. “I remember that morning. He came to wake me up. We were in Tokyo, I’m sure you remember the mission. When he realized that I was naked, he turned the brightest shade of red I’ve ever seen on a human being. I’m certain he thought that I’d…well, he refused to speak to me for the rest of the day. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that I always sleep in the nude.”

Gaby blinked rapidly for a moment. “Napoleon.” Her voice was hoarse. Napoleon breathed. “This…these paintings…he…This isn’t just inspiration or admiration for a beautiful body. This is…adoration, devotion…love.”

“God.” Napoleon stuttered out a shaking breath. “God, I hope so.”

She turned back to him. “You hope so? You aren’t…I don’t know…disgusted?”

Napoleon laughed, genuine and warm. “I’d be a hypocrite if I were.”

Gaby narrowed her eyes. “But you sleep with women all the time.”

Napoleon shrugged and reached into his jacket to pull out his checkbook. “And? Women are beautiful. So are men. What’s the point in choosing when I can have both?”

She stared at him in shock for a long moment before laughing, short and sharp. The twist of her smile was ironic. “Ever the consummate thief. Why take only one when you can have it all?”

He nodded, flashing her a smile and glanced back at the paintings. He resisted the urge to pull them off the wall. 

The curator returned with two assistance. Napoleon paid him and watched the helpers take down and wrap the paintings. He was not sure how he was going to manage the rest of the night, knowing that Illya had…that Illya…

He couldn’t even complete the thought. He didn’t know what Illya thought or felt or wanted. He knew what he thought he saw in the thick strokes of paint on canvas, in the attention that had been paid to shading and light and detail. He knew what he wanted to read from how completely Illya had memorized the brief glimpse he’d had of Napoleon’s body. But…

He had the evening to finish. They were here with a purpose. They needed to know if and how this obsequious little man was connected to THRUSH. 

He smiled and adjusted his body language.

———————————

Gaby went to Illya’s room and kicked him out of it. He was frowning at a chess board when she shouldered her way in and ordered him to go see Napoleon in their room. He frowned at her, but did as he was told.

Napoleon was facing the door, with his arms folded across his chest, examining something on the couch when Illya came in. He shut the door behind him and turned to his partner. “Gaby said you wished to see me. Did something go wrong?”

Napoleon snorted and gestured to a folder on the table, before crossing his arms again. He didn’t speak and didn’t pull his eyes from whatever was on the couch. Illya frowned, confused. 

The file turned out to be a write up of all the information that Waverly had wanted them to attain, as well as several documents that they had clearly stolen from the curator. He closed it, feeling agitated and out of sorts. Napoleon was acting oddly. He still hadn’t spoken, which was unusual after a successful mission.

Illya came around the side of the sofa to get a look at the objects that so held Napoleon’s attention. When he finally caught sight of the three paintings sitting there, he froze.

“They’re beautifully done, don’t you think? Might even be worth the idiotically high price I paid for them.” Illya had a brief moment of desperate hope that Napoleon had not realized— “You had better get a very significant sum from that weasel, because he certainly put no effort into their display and anyway, I bought them within half an hour of arriving.”

Illya swallowed, thick and painful. “What…” He cleared his throat, voice hoarse. “What do you mean I should get sum?”

Napoleon finally turned to him, his gaze burning with intensity, and Illya wished he would look back at the paintings. Or anywhere but at Illya. “Let’s not pretend, Illya. I know you painted these pieces. I know, because I distinctly remember that morning.” He gestured to the third painting. Illya’s skin was tight and he itched to crawl out of it. Away from here. Anywhere that Napoleon was not. His…sickness, his perversion was there on canvas for anyone to see. And it was his luck that Napoleon, the object of his twisted obsession, found them. “You have a very strong memory, but so do I.”

Illya swallowed again, the breath in his lungs thick with shame. “I’m sorry. I…” He trailed off, helplessly and dropped his gaze to the floor. 

Napoleon snorted. Illya flinched and braced himself. The last time something like this happened, he’d been in his late teens, already in training for the KGB. The man had beaten him bloody, but, small mercies, not reported him to anyone.

Up until this moment, he would have sworn that Napoleon was a better man than that. Now? He thought perhaps being a good man didn’t matter. He was the unnatural one, and maybe Napoleon would report him to Waverly. He’d be sent back to the KGB and from there to the Gulag. He’d done too much on this side of the Iron Curtain for anything else, even without this death sentence.

Perhaps Napoleon would merely punish him for it and then request a transfer, a new partner. Illya’s chest constricted at the thought, a prickle starting behind his eyes. 

“What have you to be sorry for, Peril? You’re an incredibly talented artist. You…your works are more emotional than those of many of the old masters.”

Illya’s head snapped up and he stared at Napoleon, shocked and confused and breathless. “What?” 

“Illya, these are beautiful. And that’s not just the narcissist in my talking. It’s…When I look at them, it’s…cognitive dissonance. It’s me in the painting, but I still feel…distant from the man in the bed. You painted him with such…love, such care…raw honesty, and such aching loneliness. My God. You’re in such pain. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Illya gasped out a strangled laugh. “Tell you, Cowboy? Tell you what? That I am one of that kind of men? That I am sick, perverted? That I want you to touch me like you touch all your women? That I—“ He cut himself off when he noticed that his hand was shaking. Panting and trying to get the rising despair that mixed with anger under control, Illya wrapped his hand around his father’s watch and dropped his gaze again.

“You saw the women.” Napoleon took a step closer. Illya didn’t understand what was happening. Napoleon grasped his chin gently and tilted his head up, so that their eyes met. “Did you never notice the men?”

Illya blinked and then stared. “M-Men?”

Napoleon nodded and tilted his head. “If you’re sick or perverted, then so am I. God, Illya, I thought for the longest time that you’d fallen in love with Gaby and I…I could deal with that, if I had to, if it made you happy. But all the time, every time you touched her or looked at her, I ached for you. Do you remember the mission we did last summer, in Greece? We went to the beach, all together for once, and spent the day watching our mark, laying in the sun, swimming. If you remember as well as I think you do, you might remember that after that first swim, I spent most of the day on the beach, sitting in a lounge chair. I was more than half hard, just watching the play of muscles under your skin. All that flesh, bare and glistening with seawater. I couldn’t have hid it, if I’d been any closer to you and I couldn’t stop looking long enough to get myself under control. Illya…please, tell me I didn’t read these incorrectly? Tell me.”

Illya couldn’t get his mouth to cooperate, couldn’t force the words passed numbed lips. So inside, he did the one thing that made perfect sense. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to Napoleon’s. 

Napoleon reached up to cling to him and he wrapped his arms around Napoleon’s waist, pulling them flush. When the lack of oxygen forced them apart, Illya leaned his forehead against Napoleon’s and panted in Russian, “I love you. It feels sometimes like I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you at that Berlin checkpoint. It feels like I did not understand what love was until I met you. Those paintings…I couldn’t…I had to do something. Every woman that fell into your bed, every gasp and moan and sigh of pleasure. I hated them all. I wanted to snap their spines and rip apart their faces, ruin whatever it was that attracted you to them and not to me. But I couldn’t. I…So I painted. I should have asked you. It is your body and I had no right to it. I should never had sent them on. I had no idea they’d turn up here. I know a woman in Sweden, who pretends to be the artist. If I had known, I—“

“I’m glad. Peril, you hadn’t painted that, I never would have realized. Gaby even saw, once I told her who the body in the bed was. She-“

“Gaby knows?” The words were strained, terrified, nearly silent.

Napoleon blinked at him, brow furrowing in confusion. “Yes. It doesn’t matter. She won’t go to Waverly. She’d be a hypocrite. And honestly, I doubt Waverly would care. We’re all too effective for it to be an issue. Sanders would have torn me apart for it, but Waverly isn’t the type.”

Illya scowled. “How hypocrite?”

Napoleon arched a brow. “Once I realized that you and Gaby weren’t a couple, it was fairly obvious. Honestly, it would probably have been obvious even sooner, but anytime you were in the room, everyone else just sort of faded to background noise, unless we were in the field. Gaby is a lesbian.”

Illya blinked. Stared. Blinked again. “A…lesbian?”

Napoleon laughed. “Yes. A lesbian. So she won’t care. She told me that she was staying in your room tonight because she said that, judging by that painting, you’re going to want to memorize everything you didn’t get to see that morning and I’m going to want to get my greedy little fingers all over you. Her words. Not that I think she’s wrong. But the phrasing…”

Illya huffed out what might have been a laugh, but sounds more like pure relief. “She is not wrong.” He murmured and dropped his mouth to Napoleon’s once more.


End file.
